Lounge chairs are often used in residential and business environments. Such chairs are often designed to provide a desired aesthetic effect while also allowing a person to sit in the chair and comfortably lean against the back of the chair.
In many designs for lounge chairs, the back of the chair is affixed so that it does not move. Thus, a user cannot move the back of the chair rearward to a reclined or tilted position to support the user's back if the user wishes to sit in a substantially reclined position. Examples of such a lounge chair may be appreciated from U.S. Pat. Nos. D625,117, D622,517, and D600,034.
Other designs for lounge chairs permit a back of the chair to recline and also permit a foot stool to extend from the base of the chair to support a user that is fully reclined or substantially reclined. Such chairs may be referred to as recliners and often utilize metal linkage systems that are actuated by the user moving a handle or pushing the back of the chair rearwardly. Examples of such lounge chairs may be appreciated from U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,730,494, 5,217,276, and 4,627,663 and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2009/0051201.
The linkage systems used in recliners can be expensive to manufacture. Further, such systems tend to be bulky and reduce the design options for providing a chair that may have a desirable aesthetic effect. In contrast, a chair that does not permit a chair back to be reclined, while often less expensive to make, usually provides less comfort to a user that wishes to sit in a substantially reclined position.
A new chair design is needed that may permit a user to recline the back of a chair so that a user may be comfortable in a number of different sitting positions while seated in the chair. Preferably, such a chair does not have to utilize a system that requires expensive linkage systems or other expensive recline systems to recline a chair back or maintain the position of the reclined chair back while also expanding the viable design options for such a chair.